Arrest made in death of slot worker

Bill Gang

Thursday, Nov. 13, 1997 | 11:06 a.m.

The second person indicted in the 1990 slaying of a computer programmer for a gaming machine company has been arrested, setting the stage for a joint trial in a Las Vegas courtroom with the admitted killer as the star witness.

John Sipes, 37, also known as Vito Bruno, was apprehended Wednesday in Phoenix on a warrant charging interstate flight to avoid prosecution in the murder-for-hire death of 49-year-old Larry Volk.

A week ago, 52-year-old Soni Beckman was arrested in a town northwest of Victorville, Calif., on murder charges for her role in the execution style slaying of the whistle-blowing programmer for American Coin Co.

Prosecutors said the break in the case came in September when David Lemons, an inmate at the state prison in Jean, admitted that he was the one who fired the single bullet into Volk's head as he worked on his car in front of his mobile home.

Lemons, however, had been tried and acquitted on murder charges in 1993 and can't face those charges again. But his admission that Beckman and Sipes were the ones who funneled $5,000 to him for the murder is expected to highlight the trial testimony.

Lemons told police that he was confessing because he needed to cleanse his conscience of the guilt he has been carrying around for more than seven years.

Volk apparently became a target after informing gaming authorities that the operators of American Coin had instructed him to alter the computer chips in video poker machines to prevent the largest payoff.

After Volk told authorities of the computer chip scam, the company was closed and the gaming licenses of the owners -- Rudolph and Rudy M. LaVecchia and Frank Romano -- were surrendered in a February 1990 deal that required them to pay a $1 million fine to the state.

American Coin, at the time, was the state's fourth largest slot route operator with more than 1,000 machines in various Las Vegas locations. It was alleged that 300 machines were altered.

Beckman and Sipes, her nephew, were said to be friends of the LaVecchias.

Although Romano's license was revoked, it was not alleged that he was part of the computer chip scam.